


Hooked

by Tabithian



Series: Patchwork [3]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU, DCU - Comicverse, Nightwing (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws, Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-13
Updated: 2012-09-13
Packaged: 2017-11-14 03:20:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/510771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabithian/pseuds/Tabithian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tim has only himself to blame for this, he knows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hooked

**Author's Note:**

> supercomicgirl gave me the idea for this one. (Ahaha, what will power? /o\\)

Tim has only himself to blame for this, he knows.

"Tim?"

"It's from Jason," he says, pulling the knife pinning the sad remains of what was probably meant to be a scarf to his kitchen table out. 

Dick gives him a look. "Should I be worried about this?" 

Tim absently flips the knife in one hand, staring at the jumble of yarn and knots and - _is that blood_?

"Er. Probably not?" When Dick fails to look convinced Tim shakes his head. "No. It's just a thing he does."

Dick sighs, like maybe Tim's version of reality isn't quite gelling with the norm again. "Let me know if I should, okay?" Because Dick worries, and not just about Jason and his. Well, his everything.

"Okay."

Dick shakes his head and heads down the hallway. "Dibs on first shower!"

Tim looks at the...thing in his hand. Looks towards the hallway. 

Thing in his hand. 

Hallway. 

He drops the thing back on the table, decision made.

"Water conservation!" he calls. It's good for the environment and other things he can't think of at the moment because he's understandably distracted by the thought of _Dick_ , and _shower_ , and _yes, please_.

Dick's answering laughter echoes down the hallway.

********

"Want to explain what that was?" Tim asks, the next time Jason stops by.

Jason mutters something under his breath, the gist of which has something to do with drug runners and knitting needles in delicate places.

"Oh my God," Tim says.

"It's not as bad as it sounds," Jason says, looking up at him. "Guy's going to be fine. Probably."

"Right," Tim says, because that's not why Jason's here. "Okay, So."

Jason rolls his eyes and takes out his current knitting project. Some kind of - 

"It's a hat, you ass."

"Of course," Tim soothes, fingers twitching towards the sad thing. 

"Fuck you," Jason says, but lets Tim take hold of the so-called hat. A few moments pass while Tim examines it, and Jason quietly fumes. And then, "I can't figure out what I did wrong," Jason finally admits. Grudging.

"Well," Tim says, placing the equally sad, if bloodier, knitting project on the table Jason left for him to find. "For starters maybe don't stab people with it?" 

Well, okay. Technically Jason stabbed the poor guy with the knitting needles his earlier knitting project was attached to, but he doesn't think Jason cares about technicalities.

"You are just a fount of wisdom, aren't you?"

"I try," Tim says, flattening Jason's current project out. "Let's take a look at this, okay?"

Jason grumbles, but moves closer so they can figure out what they can do to fix the hat.

********

"Roy tells me Jason picked up knitting," Dick says out of the blue a few days later.

"Hmm," Tim says, adjusting the binocular's focus. They've been working on a weapons smuggling case for the past week, following lead after lead to a ramshackle building they're running surveillance on. 

"You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"

None of them believe in the kind of coincidence that Jason would just randomly decide to pick up knitting as a hobby not too long after Tim did. No. They're all too paranoid and suspicious to ever do that.

"You saw what Cass can do with knitting needles, right?" Tim asks, because he's not sure if Jason wants it getting out that he's trying to use knitting for stress relief just yet. Or, well, anger relief? Something along those lines, at any rate.

Dick doesn't say anything, but Tim can feel Dick watching him. Waiting, like he thinks Tim's going to be the first to fold, which. Right. 

Dick fidgets, glancing down at the building that Tim suspects is completely empty, another dead end.

"Please tell me he's not going to go around stabbing people with knitting needles now."

"Er."

"Oh my God," Dick says, something like a laugh escaping him. 

Tim sneaks a look at him. "That's not the only reason he's taken up knitting?" Tim tries, which is mostly the truth. 

Dick holds out a hand. "Just. Stop. Please." He looks like he's moments away from losing it completely, giving into the laughter Tim can see in the lines of his face not hidden by his mask.

Tim feels his mouth turn up into a grin that borders on a smirk. Tonight's a bust, and it's not like these opportunities present themselves all that often.

"Well, there was this one guy - "

********

After that Jason takes to leaving half-finished knitting projects around Tim's apartment like a cat offering up its kills.

"Is that." Steph frowns, turning the...whatever it is on its side. Or what they think is its side. "I don't understand."

"At least there's no blood this time," Tim points out, which. Progress? 

"God, you two are so weird," Steph says, handing the thing over to Tim. 

It's not like she's the only one who thinks that. "It works," is all he says.

Steph looks at him, smiling. "Weirdos," but it's definitely fond, amused.

********

Dick comes home from patrol one night with a beanie in his hands.

"I found this on my route tonight.” He pauses, like he's trying to find the best way to word things. “Jason?" he asks Tim, like maybe there's a rogue knitter out there leaving handmade beanies and other knit goods for Gotham's Bats.

Tim takes a closer look at it because stranger things have happened. "Looks like his work."

Dick just looks at Tim. 

"...What?"

Dick shakes his head. "I don't even know where to start."

********

“Dick liked the beanie.”

Jason glances at him, eyes narrowed, like he's waiting for -

“You're getting better,” Tim offers, because Jason is. He's gotten past the horrifically misshaped hats and scarves and other...things into recognizable knit goods.

“Fuck off,” Jason says, distracted.

Tim shrugs to himself and turns his attention to his project, having finally settled on what to do for [Bruce](http://i1276.photobucket.com/albums/y461/tabithian/hooked-01-bruce.jpg) and [Alfred](http://i1276.photobucket.com/albums/y461/tabithian/hooked-02-alfred.jpg).

“Oh, goddammit,” Jason growls, throwing his project across the room and following it with more swearing, and a knife or two.

“Dropped stitch?”

“ _Fuck off_ , Tim.”

********

A week later and Dick and Tim get a break on the case with the weapons smugglers.

“Leave the jokes to me, okay?” Dick says, trying for a light tone and almost, almost making it.

Tim sighs. “Dick, I'm fine.” Not that Dick will listen, no.

They got their guys, got the guns and like it was the special door prize, the _tank_. 

“Your foot is broken, Tim,” Dick says.

“Yes?” Tim knows this, because the painkillers are starting to wear off, and also the cast on said foot.

“Sharpie,” Dick says, holding one up like maybe Tim has stopped understanding the English language. “Cast.” Tim really hasn't. “Horribly embarrassing drawings.” He just wishes he had.

“Dick!”

Dick uncaps the Sharpie and looks at Tim with the air of a disappointed teacher who knows Tim isn't fully applying himself “Maybe this will teach you not to break your foot.”

“I didn't do it on purpose, Dick!”

********

“Todd.”

Tim glances over to where Damian's at the door, Jason hovering on the other side, knife in hand and something in the other that he shoves behind his back before Tim can get a good look at it. 

"Brat," Jason greets, like he goes around knocking on doors with a knife in his hand all the time. (Who knows with him, is the thing.)

"Your grip is abysmal," Damian says, crossing his arms. "If you're attempting to - "

Jason shifts from his usual level of mild annoyance to stab someone in the blink of an eye because Damian just has affect on people, but by then Tim's on his feet, mostly.

“Well I wasn't expecting anyone to be home, was I, brat?” Jason says, secreting the knife away. “I thought everyone would be at the Manor.”

Jason looks up when Tim lurches into view, a little unsteady on his crutches still.

"Jesus," Jason says, looking Tim over. "Dick told me what happened, but seriously, baby bird. You look like shit." Jason's gotten very good at hiding his concern, but Tim can still see it.

"Always a charmer, Jason," Tim says, smiling a little in spite of himself. 

Damian scoffs, not moving from his position. "Drake is an imbecile."

"Love you too, Damian," Tim says, poking Damian with one of his crutches when he refuses to move. "And let Jason in already."

Damian glares at the offending crutch, the look in his eyes promising retribution. Later, when Tim isn't hobbling around like an invalid and will provide some manner of actual challenge, and moves aside. He gives Jason a suspicious look before leaving the two of them more or less alone. Oh, Tim knows Damian will be eavesdropping - for one, he's a Bat. For another, Dick asked him to look after Tim, something he'll take seriously because Dick asked. (Even though Tim can look after himself just fine, thanks.)

Jason bares his teeth at Damian as he passes him and stops to look at Tim. "Nice guard dog."

Tim very carefully doesn't smile. "Dick's idea." Because he worries, and even though it's hard to spot most of the time, so does Damian.

Jason makes a face. "Really?"

Tim makes his way back to the kitchen table and gratefully reclaims his seat. He's just a little banged up, bruises and small cuts and, okay, the foot, but he's fine. Really.

"Getting old, baby bird," Jason opines, leaning against the table. 

"You wanted something?" Tim asks, because he's not getting old, Jason. He's not even _twenty_ yet.

And now Jason looks uncomfortable. "This," he says, and tosses something – gently for him - at Tim's face.

Tim catches it easily enough, and [smiles when he sees what it is](http://rbhoofprint999.deviantart.com/art/Nightwing-Amigurumi-Comission-306944881). "No blood again, good job," he says, laughing at the look Jason gives him.

"Laugh it up, chuckles," Jason growls, ducking his head a little. "Took me forever to make that damn thing."

"Thank you, Jason. You might want to find another way of leaving me things though," Tim says, gesturing at the knife mark on the kitchen table between them. "It makes Dick nervous, and Bruce isn't all that happy about it either."

"Why do you think I do it that way?" Jason asks, smirking now because of course he was doing it for a reason, of course he was.

“Freak,” Tim says, corner of his mouth curving into a small smile.

“Takes one to know one,” Jason says, amused.

“You're both imbeciles!” Damian yells from the other room.

“Kid's right,” Jason says, eying Tim's cast. 

Tim's getting a bad feeling. 

“Jason - “

“Guess what Dickiebird gave me?” Jason asks, holding up a Sharpie before Tim can answer, and oh, God, no. 

“Jason, no.”

It's Jason, so of course he doesn't listen. And Tim could stop him if he really wanted to – he has the crutches and a whole array of things close to hand that could be used as a weapon, but. 

This is Jason, grinning at him as he advances with a Sharpie. That's Damian peering around the doorway with something like curiosity on his face, and it's not like these opportunities present themselves all that often.

Jason follows his gaze and _smirks_ , eyes darting back to Tim.

“I hate all of you,” he says, tipping his head back to look at the ceiling, trying and failing to hide his smile. 

“Get over here, Demon,” Jason says, unperturbed by Tim's declaration as he gestures to Damian. “Baby bird's cast needs redecorating.”

Tim lowers his head when Damian hesitates, uncertain. “I have full confidence whatever you do will be nothing compared to what Dick put on it.” Bit of a challenge there, a dare, and oh, there goes Damian.

“We'll see about that, Drake.”

Jason snorts, tossing the Sharpie to Damian. “Go get 'em, Demon.”

Tim sighs, put upon, as he sets his foot on one the kitchen chairs for better access. 

“You know you have no one to blame for this but yourself, right?” Jason asks quietly, amused.

The knitting, or Jason and the knitting, or just Damian in his kitchen staring at Tim's cast like it's either a trap or some kind of test, it's hard to tell what Jason means, but.

“Yeah,” Tim says with a smile because he's surprisingly okay with that, with _all_ of that.


End file.
